Tis spring in Melbourne. We have hail, flash flooding, humidity, sunshine, cloudy days and much politics. Also, we have spam, lots of spam referencing flowers. It's the season: She cherished the flowers. I love flowers of every kind. The flowers. Sounds creepy with 'the'. But think of this as a season for crafts and markets. … Continue reading Spring in my spam

Familiarity breeds If you learn nothing else from 55 years of Doctor Who it is that people are people, no matter if they are blue, or encased in metal, or are sentient mollusc planets escaping their own universe, or humans living in India in 1947. Thus, I don't understand the outcry about the focus on … Continue reading Doctor Who: Borderlines

With any ongoing narrative, it's easy to think about each episode or series, or producer era in terms of like or dislike. I hate Moffat, some declare, others loved Amy and Rory. OK. These declarations are personal judgements, informed by individual preferences, biases and understandings, hence debating them is endless and circular. People don't change … Continue reading Doctor Who: R&R

Often I feel like I'm not achieving enough. Days contain all sorts of things that need to be done, but there's not enough structure. Meanwhile, sleeping has been extremely absent, which means some fuzzy thinking and fatigue. Is there such a thing as Seasonal Affective Disorder for spring? Whatever it is, my head hurts. Yet, … Continue reading October: it’s a wrap

Motivations We knew this would happen. New companions of The Doctor would return to Sheffield and from there, make a decision to keep going. In terms of Joseph Campbell Hero's Journey schema, heroes are called, get help (The Doctor), and then may resist the call (go home) but then decides to cross the threshold. The … Continue reading Doctor Who: Sympathy for the Devil

I saw Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper's A Star is Born. I have many feelings. My friend thought we were seeing a 2018 version of Almost Famous. I imagined something about a musical. We were wrong. There are spoilers. So stop here. Firstly, the singing performances are everything. They soar. Obviously Lady Gaga can sing, but she is … Continue reading Review: A Star Explodes

In Rosa Doctor Who achieved the balance between education, personalisation, new stories, and call backs. The Doctor Calls It's a new era but the comforting sense of continuity um, continues, with call backs to the Storm Cage, Perception Filters and a Vortex Manipulator. New viewers won't care these have a provenance, while everyone else will … Continue reading Doctor Who: Balancing Act

I didn't mean to, but I started something. I have an Instagram account, and it's mostly full of sunsets, art, and visually arresting things (and puns) and now RedBubble promotions. I don't really use Insta for writing related efforts. This week I started to. It's been both frustrating and creatively fulfilling. After endlessly tinkering with … Continue reading Starting something

I'm going to concentrate on the craft in my commentary of Doctor Who, because: brand differentiation. I'm claiming it. Chris Chibnall is doing a couple of things with this story: cementing relationships and setting up the enemy. Call Backs: Looks like the Stenza have been set up as the Big Bad, first hunting on Earth, … Continue reading Doctor Who: Setting Up

You can never experience your own writing in the same way readers can. Writers know their own story, are often unaware of their usual or unusual foibles, and read what they want imagined, not what they put on the page. So they see the wood for the trees. Unless you write something and completely forget … Continue reading Something old is renewed